…..Intrinsically, every time the IDF gets close to vanquishing our enemies, they are rolled back. Instead of operating as an offensive force, they have been mandated to wage a defensive war, whose core goal is “containment,” certainly not victory. Why?

Even if one tries to convince oneself that Washington and others prevent the IDF from achieving victory (through various measures), it still doesn’t take the absolute onus off the leadership. First and foremost, it is their sworn duty to protect their citizens.

In essence, Israel’s leadership has become “legal outlaws.” World-recognized, international criminal law expert Professor Louis Beres states, “Terrorism is a crime under international law, and incontestably one of the most serious. The precise offenses that comprise this crime can be found at the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism…. [Every] state has an obligation under international law to prosecute and punish terrorists…. [Any] person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible and liable to punishment….”

In addition, Israel’s Basic Law is very clear. Israeli leadership is obligated to protect the enshrined civil and human rights of its citizens – Zionists included. Doesn’t all the above violate this sacred law?…..

Nullum Crimen Sine Poena. No Crime Without Punishment.

Indeed, in 2007, Israel’s southern belt was continuously fired upon, even after the late PM Sharon, in 2005, executed the wholesale destruction of Gush Katif and parts of the northern Shomron to appease Hamas! Incontestably, from a strategic calculus, what is taking place today must be viewed as the knock-on effects from the appeasement of Gush Katif, a/k/a Gaza, as detailed within “The Bitter Fruits of Disengagement.” Inextricably, those who appease terror ensure more of the same – and exponentially worse! So much so, in August 2011, at the behest of HONENU, Israel’s National Legal Defense Organization – and with first-hand testimony and evidence in hand – the aforementioned expose’ was meant to memorialize the sixth year of the region’s wholesale expulsion and destruction, and to set the record straight for the Jewish people’s collective memory. The following are some searing excerpts, which, as an aside, cause this investigative journalist as much pain today as when the report’s findings were compiled:

Few events in Israel’s recent history sear the Jewish soul as did the destruction of 25 thriving Jewish communities in Gush Katif and the northern Shomron, as ordered by the Sharon-Olmert government. The sixth anniversary of what is referred to as the ‘disengagement’ of August 2005 now looms over Israel’s collective conscience.

In a move that set Jew against Jew, the IDF was used to engineer the expulsion of more than 8,600 people from their homes. Gush Katif residents watched in horror as the living were dragged from their homes and the burial places of the dead were desecrated. Later, 26 synagogues were burned by Arab mobs.

The destruction itself took place over 10 days, but the physical and mental preparations occupied many months beforehand. Three years later, in August 2008, a report entitled “The Mental Preparation for the Disengagement and its Aftermath in the IDF” would shed light on the intense preparations that took place.

The authors call the disengagement “a precise operation” performed with seven levels of security that took 18 months to plan.

The report describes a series of psychological exercises “planned to ‘release’ the soldiers from their conscience by carrying out exercises in emotional disconnect.” The psychologists’ notes on those exercises are detailed in the journal Military Psychology(No. 5, December 2006)…..continue reading the dastardly truth here…..

As such, under rational parameters, one can be forgiven for thinking that “Bibi” would, finally, instruct the IDF: maspik, enough, topple Hamas and kill them off for firing (within the past few weeks) upwards of 250 rockets/missiles; for “kite terror” which continues to destroy (for months on end) tens of thousands of dunams in Israel’s southern belt, and, for the nineteen civilians injured over the last two days!!

Well, one would be (deadly) wrong for believing that protecting the public is his highest priority. It is not.

As always, “Bibi”, Israel’s “serial accommodator” (the buck stops with him) has decided upon “tit for tat” as the IDF’s “strategic” response to continuous terror from the Brotherhood’s Hamas, thereby, deploying the same “knock on roof” smoke and mirrors shows. Yes, by so doing, the leaders hope to quell a restive and highly-charged Zionist public through toothless and useless actions. Who do they think they are fooling??

After 250 rockets from Gaza hit Israeli locations, one a heavy Grad, Israel’s security cabinet meeting Thursday, Aug. 9, directed the IDF to continue to pursue “powerful action against terrorist forces.” This was tantamount to a decision against a major Israeli military campaign against Hamas at this time, while instead carrying on with tit-for-tat air strikes as before, and leaving the targeted communities to their despair. Some 19 people were injured in the last two days. Hamas is therefore still allowed to call the shots, exactly as it has done in the last four months, while inflicting in Israel diverse brands of terror. It is still up to Hamas to decide whether to stop shooting rockets at Israel or continue the barrage ongoing for two days, as well as determining the level of its retaliation for Israeli reprisals.

Therefore, after an Israel air strike demolished the five-story Hamas internal security building in the Gaza City’s Rimal district – in return for the first Grad fired on Beersheba, a major city in southern Israel, in four years, Hamas is expected to ratchet up its rocket fire on Israeli civilian locations in the coming hours and days. Israel forewarned residents of the Rimal district of the bombardment. The building was therefore empty of Hamas officials, a repeat of the “knock on roof” tactic the Israeli Air Force used in the past to avert collateral civilian casualties in counter-terror attacks.

This practice is an element in the IDF-Hamas duel which has its own strange rules. In the heat of Wednesday’s rocket barrage, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkot stated that the IDF “is better prepared than it has been in the past decades.” Prepared for what? No answer was forthcoming from the cabinet the next day. In the general’s judgment, Hamas has still not broken those unwritten rules. He therefore persuaded the prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to hold back from approving a full-scale campaign to halt Hamas’ nagging violence once and for all.

Realizing that this stance will offend the popular will, in the sight of the suffering of the targeted population of southwestern Israel, both have not been seen or heard in public for some days. Meanwhile, they are hoping against hope that something may come of the long term truce mediation effort conducted by the UN emissary and Egypt, although realistic chances of this are practically nil.

Bastard leadership.

Still yet, here’s the upshot: regardless of all domestic and foreign political pressures (surely, Trump’s Orwellian “peace plan” is atop the leadership’s calculation to “hold their fire”, of course, no one beholden to Washington would want to interfere with that, as well as their continuous trembling fear of world opinion), Israel’s PM, first and foremost, is duty bound to protect the citizens, without which he becomes a “legal outlaw”, that is, according to international law.

In this regard, in 2014, then, as now – after the summer-long blitzkrieg by Hamaswhich blanketed all of Israel, and Hamas was (purposefully) left standing to rebuild and regroup – the IDF’s smoke and mirrors shows targeted empty buildings, warning Gazans in advance of impending attacks! Mind you, in the meanwhile, Hamas’s terror chieftains remain safe in their underground bunkers, only to emerge after the dust settles, so to speak – stronger than ever!!

And just as “Bibi” opined after the IDF’s “tit for tat” in 2014 – that Israel will not negotiate under fire, even as he turned around and did just that – so too he did at yesterday’s Security Cabinet meeting. Has he learned nothing from past “ceasefires?” Rhetorical.

Most significantly, it must be recorded: Hamas controls, yes, they do, when the mighty (but castrated) IDF fires, or ceases its fire; when Israel’s southern citizens cower in bomb shelters, or don’t; when Jewish/Zionist land burns down, or doesn’t, and, most significantly, when Jews can live securely in the Jewish homeland free of constant terror!

And for that, and for all the fiery aftermath, the onus lands on “Bibi’s” head via his absolute dereliction of duty and failure to protect – itself, a grave crime against the majority Zionist public!

…..Significantly, I am able to access some professionals who are just a notch below the actual decision-making level and their rage is duly palpable. It is these intimate “off the record” conversations (through face-to-face meetings, among other avenues) which are particularly scary and worth noting. They are well aware of the acute dangers facing Israel, most of which became greatly exacerbated through too many smoke and mirrors shows (most recently, under PM Netanyahu’s two-term tenure), and “Operation Protective Edge” was more than emblematic of this unflattering descriptor. Besides, it is the most accurate and honest way to define the “operation.”

In other words, without naming names, the following points (via a multiplicity of meetings) became duly resonant:

As highly sought after experts operating mainly (but not exclusively) in areas of strategic affairs and counter-terror, they understand (from grounded experience) what it means for Israel not to win a decisive victory over Hamas, or for that matter over any regional foe. Inherently, we discussed both the strategic knock-on effects (to be explored below), as well as the psychological components of PM Netanyahu’s decision not to bring Hamas to its knees, effectively making them wave the white flag of surrender.

Not inconsequentially, they pointed to a particular internal danger which has been (purposefully) overlooked, but given a tail-wind due to PM Netanyahu’s failure to deliver a full-on, top-down, knockout blow to Hamas. Intrinsically, a growing segment of the Arab minority population has already chosen sides; they are rooting for Hamas’s victory over Israel. Without guile, they identify themselves as “Palestinians” and not as Israelis, even though they completely benefit from all of Israel’s largess. Ingrates. Traitors……

Consequentially, every triumphalist exhortation by Hamas’s leaders (even though a good portion of the Strip has been reduced to rubble…like water off a duck’s back) further sears into the Zionist public’s consciousness certain truths: that their mighty IDF – inarguably the strongest army in the Middle East – were never given orders to liquidate Hamas’s top leadership and their attendant underground command and control centers, a pre-requisite to victory. This is the case even though they had to endure missile blitzes, for weeks on end, blanketing the entire country!…..continue here….

Inextricably, a rational leadership would follow the once fearless Israeli leadership, as expressed thusly: Whack them and finish (זבנג וגמרנו) !! Understood?

But not to restate the obvious, the same sentiments expressed by an Israeli General – upon learning about another ! “ceasefire” – are felt within, though he said it more eloquently: